Is Big Blue India’s New Big Boss?

The Times of India on Wednesday reported that New York-based information technology giant IBM could already have as many as 130,000 employees in India, citing estimates made by unnamed sources within the company.

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U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Samuel Palmisano, chairman of IBM, which may be one of India’s bigger private employers.

The paper figures “one of India Inc.’s best-kept secrets” is that Big Blue is India’s second-largest private-sector employer. The report says the country’s largest outsourcer, Tata Consultancy Services, is the biggest employer with about 160,000 employees.

IBM spokesman Prashanth Balarama would not comment on the story or provide India Real Time with any official number of employees in India.

“The geographic distribution of highly skilled employees required to be successful in this industry is a source of competitive advantage for companies competing globally,” so IBM doesn’t make public the breakdown of how many people it has in each country, Mr. Balarama said. “Many technology companies have recognized this, and already disclose headcount only on a global basis.”

He did disclose, however, that the 99-year-old company’s global workforce is about 400,000 strong.

IBM’s 2007 annual report was the last public record of the company’s India workforce. That year, it grew 43% from the year before, to about 74,000 people. At the time, the company as a whole was experiencing an average of 8% growth in its global workforce. Even at the global rate, IBM would already have close to 100,000 employees in India today.

If IBM has more than 100,000 employees in India, it would easily be among the top-10 largest private-sector employers, though perhaps not at number two. The Times of India tally seemed to leave out giant employers such as Hindustan Unilever, which has 174,000 employees, according to data on Indian-listed companies from Thomson Reuters.

There are larger employers in the government sector—Indian Railways, for example, has more than 1.5 million employees—and most Indians still either work in the informal sector of small shops and businesses or hold unskilled-labor jobs. Still, the data are telling.

As U.S. President Barack Obama tries to keep jobs at home and the U.S. Congress moves to increase the cost of employing foreigners, such as Indian IT workers, one of America’s premier IT companies may be raking in India’s low-cost, high-skilled workforce faster than most Indian firms.

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